12 advantages of a flexible benefits platform

What is a flexible benefits platform?

A flexible benefits platform brings all your employee benefits together under one roof while allowing staff to tailor their benefits to them. Employees can make use of flexible benefits technology to tailor their employee benefits experience to them and make the most of the employee benefits that matter to them the most.

Sometimes, employees are allocated flexible benefits allowance to use on benefits of their choice. When using or applying for a scheme, employees have the choice to allocate their flexible benefits allowance to cover some or all the cost.

To see how it could work for your business, head over to our flexible benefits page.

12 Advantages of a Flexible Benefits Platform

In reality, there are loads of advantages to flexible benefits platforms.

The advantages your business would gain from a flexible benefits platform may be different from the next, but there’s no doubting the importance of flexible benefits and the overall benefit flexible benefits technology can have on your business and your employees.

Employees can personalise their benefits

A flexible benefits platform allows staff to benefit from the perks that suit them and their family best.

Staff get a more personalised experience with your employee benefits set up and the choice and flexibility they’re afforded only serves to improve their experience further.

Whether it is benefits or rewards, the more personalised you make it the more of an impact it will have!

Staff feel more valued

Having a flexible benefits platform shows staff that the business values the employee having access to a benefits package that suits them down to the ground.

While some employee benefits offerings are a selection of benefits the company might feel suit the overwhelming demographic, taking the time and investing in a flexible benefits platform to benefit the employee further demonstrates a commitment to staff and the employee experience.

Whether it’s a graduate employee looking for discounts or a parent looking for better family health cover, staff will feel more valued know their company has invested time and resources into a benefits set up that they genuinely benefit from.

Improved employee retention

A more tailored employee benefits package is valuable to staff on both a personal and financial level.

Not only does it make staff feel more valued, it means staff are more likely to make savings and benefit financially through higher scheme uptake.

With a pay, compensation and benefits package that is more valuable on the whole, staff are much less likely to be tempted away by a pay rise.

A flexible benefits platform helps provide a benefits package that is much less likely to be matched anywhere else, while also improving the relationship between the employee and the company.

Improved recruitment

A flexible benefits platform is great for your staff but also for new recruits.

Flexible benefits could genuinely be the difference between someone choosing your company over another as the whole pay, compensation and benefits package is taken into account.

Some benefits are incredibly valuable from a financial perspective to certain staff and with more options, your benefits package is opened up to be as beneficial as it can possibly be to as many employees as possible, ensuring your benefits set up is always better than that of competing recruiters.

A flexible benefits package will drive up the value of your pay, compensation and benefits package thus aiding the recruitment process!

Better employee engagement

A flexible benefits platform that is easy to use, responsive and efficient will also boost engagement with your benefits.

A key factor in driving benefits uptake is ease of access to benefits for staff. Keeping all your benefits under one roof on a flexible benefits platform that is designed with the user experience in mind will boost engagement.

Bigger tax and NI savings on salary sacrifice schemes

Through a boost in engagement and increased uptake, not only can staff make savings but the company can too. For salary sacrifice schemes where the employer can make Tax and NI savings, more savings can be made through increased uptake.

With increased benefits engagement and increased savings, some salary sacrifice schemes can essentially become cost neutral.

While employee benefits and a flexible benefits platform are and should be considered an investment, increased salary sacrifice scheme take up can in fact generate a real return on investment financially before any other advantages are taken into account such as improved retention and recruitment.

An added dimension to your reward

A flexible benefits platform adds an invaluable dimension to how you reward staff.

With flexible benefits platform technology, employees can ultimately decide how they’re rewarded.

The effectiveness of this depends entirely on how your flexible benefits platform is set up. For example, if you run a Holiday Trading scheme and you’re utilising a flexible benefits allowance, an employee could use their flexible benefits allowance they’ve received as a reward on purchasing an extra day of annual leave.

Emphasises your internal reward brand

A tailored, customised flexible benefits platform with a design and functionality that fits your internal brand will only serve to strengthen it in the minds of your employees.

Hosting all your benefits on a branded platform helps make your internal brand more recognisable and will help boost the effectiveness of your internal communications.

An internal brand can be a key driver of a strong company culture and many large organisations across the world invest heavily in their internal brand, benefiting both internally and externally as a result.

As an employee benefits provider, we’ve developed tailored, branded platforms for some of the UK’s biggest companies and we’ve seen the benefits. For more, take a look at our platform options.

Ease of access to your benefits

With a flexible benefits platform staff can access their platform and their benefits from just about anywhere through multiple devices.

As mentioned, ease of access is key to driving uptake and engagement. One aspect of that is, as mentioned, the user experience. Another is the ability to access the platform in the first place anywhere, anytime.

Not only will a purpose-built platform guide the user through and allow them quick access to their benefits, it will be readily available for them to access on a PC, mobile or tablet or in fact any device that supports it.

Reporting all in one place

A purpose-built, all in one flexible benefits platform will be designed to make the life of a HR professional much easier and much more efficient.

Having everything all in one place allows for more efficient reporting and administration, so it is not just more efficient for staff but for those managing the platform day-to-day too.

A flexible benefits platform is an investment with huge potential. Not only does it modernise your employee benefits set up, but it can help provide solutions to some of the most difficult HR challenges such as recruitment, retention and employee engagement. As HR investments go you won’t make one like it!

Bespoke communications

With a flexible benefits platform, one of the biggest challenges employers face is communicating benefits to employees.

With a dedicated platform, including all the schemes you wish to include, with the right provider you’ll not only get benefits communication material provided to promote the platform but marketing for schemes too to help create a buzz around new scheme launches and new benefit scheme application windows to ensure maximum take-up.

Enhanced benefits choice

A dedicated platform allows you to bring together a huge number of employee benefits to provide your employees even more choice when it comes to their flexible benefits.

At Access, we offer a huge range of employee benefits which can be incorporated through a flexible benefits platform to satisfy this very need.

Employers find this a huge challenge when implementing flexible benefits, but a dedicated platform makes this not only possible but much easier.

Looking for a flexible benefits platform?

Allocate your employees flexible benefits allowance and integrate all of your existing benefits into one easy-to-manage and user-friendly flexible benefits platform.

Flex Benefits is designed in-house and is consistently updated to meet the changing demands of an ever-evolving workplace.